Contact Admin. With its rich deposits of oil, diamonds and zinc, Greenland is joining the race for new natural resources. Many Greenlanders hope the island's untapped wealth will pave the way to independence.
Aleqa was the first born child in a family from Uummannaq in northern Greenland, and that would normally have meant that her life was already mapped out for her. In the region, about kilometers miles north of the Polar Circle, halibut, whales and seals have shaped the cycle of life for centuries. The men go fishing and hunting, while the women cook and raise the children.
There is little room for extravagance on the fringes of the eternal ice. AFP Ilulissat ice fjord, western Greenland. After finishing school, Aleqa went to college in Canada, instead of Denmark, to earn a degree in teaching English. Then she returned home to earn a second degree, this time in the study of her native Inuit culture.
Today Aleqa Hammond is She is the foreign minister and finance minister of the semi-autonomous island republic, and an important advocate for removing the polar island from the Kingdom of Denmark, which also includes the Faroe Islands.
Fishing, mostly of halibut, cod and crabs, is Greenland's main source of revenue. Without generous subsidies from Copenhagen, the government of the former colony would have gone bankrupt long ago.
